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EVENTS

No, we haven’t all died

I know, a week and a half without a new post is a long time for any blog to go, especially one with a pretty strong readership we’d like to keep. (Hugs!) It’s just one of those times when real life intrudes, I suppose, and none of us has found the time to work blogging into our schedules. I’ll do my best to improve that situation for my own part. Everyone else, well, they post rarely enough as it is, so they’ll drop by when they see fit, I’m sure. (Condescending snicker.)

I must say, it has been kind of nice to take a breather, away from the daily cataloguing of the absurdities of the righteous. Still, there are some things going on, and so it’s a good time to haul my fat ass back up into the saddle and get this old nag back on the road again.

The biggest news down Austin way has been the confirmation hearings for that assrocket Dan “Stand Up To The Experts” McLeroy. Our bold and equally rebellion-minded governer Rick “Secede!” Perry reappointed McLeroy to chair the Texas State Board of Education in 2007, but his reappointment requires the Senate Nomination Committee’s approval, apparently, and today, his confirmation hearing was held. The Texas Freedom Network liveblogged it, and they have a high old time unpacking all of Mac’s prevarications as he was up at the mic defending himself and the SBOE. It sounds as if McLeroy did an absolutely awesome job of digging his own grave today. I hope the Committee realizes that statements like this…

5:37 -McLeroy says almost everyone in his church rejects evolution and supports creationism. He describes himself as a young Earth creationist. He says he tells reporters that he wants to be up front and honest about his beliefs. “I think it’s a pretty rational view.”

…are tantamount to the man just standing up and shouting “Disqualify me!” I mean, cripes, this is like asking General Motors shareholders and board of directors to appoint as CEO of the company a man who says, “Well, I’m pretty sure that cars are powered by a combination of giant wound-up rubber bands and a couple dozen hamsters on treadmills concealed within the engine block. I think that’s a pretty rational view.”

I mean, here’s a man boasting of how totally uneducated he is, and he’s expecting Senate confirmation?

McLeroy really does appear to have been grilled. At least one senator has stated his intention to oppose Mac’s confirmation, and other senators on the committee don’t sound terribly sympathetic to him. Let us hope that the vote goes the right way, and Texas will finally start back on the proper path in how it educates its students, without extremist religious ideology and the personal beliefs of SBOE members constantly setting up roadblocks that unnecessarily impede the whole process, solely for the gratification of the egos of McLeroy and his idiot YEC posse.

Comments

Heard about that ‘cede from the union’ thing… in the unlikely event that actually happened, would you guys still do a show? That’s really all I care about =)Last NPR and AE were good as always, especially the whole ‘religion getting in the way of diagnosing the mentally ill’ thing and the points Shilling made!On a completely unrelated note, here’s a question I’d like to throw out (to anyone that can answer)… where did the myth that Adolf Hitler was an Atheist come from? Was there one person in particular that started it?The reason I ask is when I’ve had converstaions with Christians who mention it, shoot ’em down with a few quotes from Mein Kampf and his speeches and ask them where they heard it, all they say is “I heard it from someone”. So, anyone out there know who got the ball rolling on that ugly rumour?

I have been following this from afar (Ireland) – and i remain disgusted on your behalf. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to live amongst such obnoxious fools. We have our own problems here, but relatively speaking i live in an oasis of the sane. You have my sympathy.

I mean, here’s a man boasting of how totally uneducated he is, and he’s expecting Senate confirmation?Yeah, but it’s Texas. And if they do disqualify him, the fundies will just cry “Discrimination!” And they’ll still have other creationists on the Board.Let Texas secede. We can appropriate federal funds (we’re printing money these days, so why not?) to help the Austinites move, and we can airlift out the few progressives and moderates who somehow became lost in and around Dallas and Houston. Let the morons bury themselves.Better yet, I hope Mexico moves in and reclaims it. There’s a conflict that should last about a day and a half. I could use a good laugh.

Jon wrote:Last NPR and AE were good as always, especially the whole ‘religion getting in the way of diagnosing the mentally ill’ thing and the points Shilling made!That was a highlight of the conversation for me too.… where did the myth that Adolf Hitler was an Atheist come from?Like other famous people who wrote/said a lot, conflicting quotes can be mined to support either side. Hitler did say some things like “”National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.””The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.””Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity…. My regret will have been that I couldn’t… behold [its demise].”This page I think does a pretty good job of a balanced presentation of Hitler’s views on religion. Short version: he was neither a Christian nor an atheist.More importantly, I think, is that the Christians in Germany supported him very strongly.

To the fictional GM guy’s credit…at least his idea is PLAUSIBLE. In theory you could make a car run by a complex system of rubber bands (A friend of mine in HS did something similar to physics class…it was a pain to wind and moved across the parking lot before it stopped and was ceremoniously retired). At least he gets the general idea behind an engine and isn’t just saying that invisible pixies push the car.

About the Hitler thing, I think we can safely assume that while not Christian by faith he was a believer. Nobody can believe in racial mysticism and be a genuine atheist. Associating evolutionism and Nazism is even more dishonest. The same thing goes for Stalin and USSR: Stalin was an atheist, but his USSR was a theocracy in disguise. Again, it shows the “bad faith” (I am freely using an expression of Sartre here) of the believers. I mentioned in a previous comment Orwell’s 1984, wrongly associated by many Christians as the Hell a Godless world would be. But Big Brother is of course a god, omnipotent, unfaillible, asking to be worshipped and loved, who rewards the faithful but severely punishes the heatens…but not before converting them, thus showing his “love”. Orwell’s distopia is an honest picture of what would really be a fundamentalist’s utopia.

Again, it shows the “bad faith” (I am freely using an expression of Sartre here) of the believers. I mentioned in a previous comment Orwell’s 1984, wrongly associated by many Christians as the Hell a Godless world would be. But Big Brother is of course a god, omnipotent, unfaillible, asking to be worshipped and loved, who rewards the faithful but severely punishes the heatens…but not before converting them, thus showing his “love”. Orwell’s distopia is an honest picture of what would really be a fundamentalist’s”It’s only bad for them because there’s no religion. The other stuff isn’t nearly as bad.

To avoid some of the dead periods, have you put any thought into pre-scheduling open thread posts for the show? Barring those weeks where there is no show (which could still have “No show this week. Open thread!” posts), this would be a good way to keep those much-beloved commenters busy even when our much-beloved bloggers are busy in meatspace.

“It’s only bad for them because there’s no religion. The other stuff isn’t nearly as bad.”Which is funny, Ing, because a lot of them believe that Jebus is going to establish a paradise of Christianity and ONLY Christianity, therefore wiping out religion anyway.I guess it’s fine as long as it’s their religion.